York County entrepreneurs unite

YCCC initiative provides training, networking and inspiration

WELLS, Maine — Lorraine Tuttle and her husband, David, have been farmers their entire working lives and have been successful at it. Now in their late middle age, the Berwick couple decided to supplement their income, "trying to build wealth" for older age by becoming a southern Maine distributor for a health drink.

• The next luncheon meeting of York County entrepreneurs takes place April 6 from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at the York County Community College campus in Wells.• To contact Paulette Mil...

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FYI

• The next luncheon meeting of York County entrepreneurs takes place April 6 from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at the York County Community College campus in Wells.

• To contact Paulette Millette, call the college at (207) 646-9282

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WELLS, Maine — Lorraine Tuttle and her husband, David, have been farmers their entire working lives and have been successful at it. Now in their late middle age, the Berwick couple decided to supplement their income, "trying to build wealth" for older age by becoming a southern Maine distributor for a health drink.

Casting about for a place to meet other entrepreneurs and learn from small business professionals, they attended a newly formed group for York County entrepreneurs at York County Community College in Wells.

"I thought it would be a good chance to rub elbows with other business-minded people," Lorraine said. "My main objective is to meet other entrepreneurs, and this group offered that opportunity."

The group, which launched a monthly luncheon meeting last month, is the most recent addition to programs offered by the YCCC Entrepreneur Center, formed six years ago to guide not only established small business people in York County but those considering a business.

The center is part of the college's Community Education and Career Training Department, which provides a variety of nonacademic assistance to businesses, workers and local communities.

"We found that a lot of small businesses didn't know where to go when they were starting up or making changes, and we wanted to be able to offer them help," said CECT department director Paulette Millette. "We wanted to concentrate on York County and what we could do to make the business environment better for them, to provide them with the tools they need."

The Entrepreneur Center offers training twice a year to York County residents interested in starting or growing a small business, said Millette, and so far about 45 people have gone through the program. The center was launched with a grant from Kennebunk Savings Bank, and has been sustained with grants from the Kauffman Foundation, a foundation that supports entrepreneur programming nationwide.

The nuts-and-bolts training runs the gamut from creating a business plan to marketing, and "all the things you have to be thinking about if you're going to be in business," she said.

Over the years, she said, a variety of people have taken the training.

"We had one gentleman who was laid off and always had a passion for making birdhouses. He took the training to see if he could turn that passion into a business. I remember the last day of the course, he thanked us and saying, 'I had a dream I never thought I could do,'" said Millette. "One person wanted to open a sub shop, another wanted to start her own bookkeeping service."

Millette said in some cases, "once people start doing their homework, they might find that it isn't for them. And that's good. You want people to succeed and have a realistic expectation of what's ahead of them."

Susan Conners of South Berwick was one such person. She has two small children and was thinking she could work at some sort of business at home. "For me, it just proved I can't do anything like that right now. And that was OK. I needed to learn that."

Millette said the training program remains an important part of the center, but she and her board of directors were looking for other ways to encourage entrepreneurship as well. As a result, several years ago the center began offering Entrepreneur of the Year awards, with an annual awards dinner each November.

Most recently, Jim and Carla Spencer of Golden Harvest and Carl's Meat Market in Kittery picked up the Employer of the Year award.

"It's something people really look forward to," she said. "We honor those people who are doing good work in the county."

But there was still a missing piece, said Millette: a way for entrepreneurs and small business people to gather for peer-to-peer networking. Hence the launch last month of the monthly "working" luncheon meeting for entrepreneurs.

The meetings are divided into networking, roundtable discussions and a presentation by an expert chosen by the group to cover a topic of interest to them. Their first meeting was Feb. 21, and more than 40 business people attended.

"I think it's going to be successful," said Millette.

Susan Baracco, who has taught the training program in the past, runs a networking organization for women small business owners in Portland. She said the new monthly meeting, which she is helping to launch, is important for the person who wants to take a business to the next level and needs help plotting strategy.

"Maybe they're bumping into things they don't know how to handle. Possibly they're at a place where they need staff. We all agree we need help with marketing," she said. The training "provides a platform where they can discuss these matters and learn from each other. It's very much a functional meeting

Tuttle, the longtime farmer, was among the 40 who attended the first meeting, and she said she'd definitely go back again.

"Those are the kinds of people I want to be talking to," she said. She was particularly interested in listening to knowledgeable speakers, and has already made some suggestions to Millette for future presenters. "If they have the right speakers that small business owners are looking for, that will be a draw. For a business owner, profit is everything. Tell us how to improve the bottom line, and we'll be there."